Ben Folds Fake

A little over five years ago, shortly after I moved to New York City, my friend Brandon Arnold commented that I resembled rock star Ben Folds when we were out drinking at a bar. I decided we should test his theory out, and I wound up fooling an entire bar into thinking I was Ben Folds. We had so much fun that we repeated it the next night to even crazier results. It was the first scene I ever caused in New York, and the inspiration for this website.
Last week I got an email from New York musician Corn Mo, “Hi, I play in a one man band called Corn Mo. I’m on the road with Ben Folds. He wants to do something with you at one of the NY shows this weekend.” Although I suspected that someone might be playing a joke on me, I responded enthusiastically and said I was up for anything (on the off chance it was actually for real.)

Corn Mo

The next day I got an email from Ben Folds himself. My jaw dropped. He said some nice things about Improv Everywhere and asked if we would be available to cause a couple of scenes at his NYC shows. He had an idea he wanted to do involving the 10Hz Frequency and said he was open to others as well. I wrote back immediately letting him know we would be thrilled to work with him on anything. He called me the next day and we worked out a couple of ideas.

Night One: Hammerstein Ballroom

The plan was for the show to begin with three imposters entering the stage rather than the actual band. I would reprise my role as fake Ben Folds and Agents Barrison and King would pose as Ben’s bassist and drummer, respectively.

We were all very anxious, as all three of us had been huge Ben Folds fans since our college days. We all met up at soundcheck at 4 PM.

Walking to soundcheck

Meeting the band

“Improv guys!” Agent Folds shouted as he walked into the room. He and his bandmates, Agent Jamieson and Agent Reynolds, couldn’t have been nicer. Agent Reynolds, the bassist, turned out to be a fan of Improv Everywhere and was the one who had first told Agent Folds about us. The first thing he said to us was, “Where’s the asian guitarist?” Once everyone was introduced, we got to work.

Agent Folds gave me a tutorial on how to mimic his piano-playing style.

Since none of us could actually play our assigned instruments, the plan was to play a CD as we pretended to jam. Agent Folds had his engineer down in Nashville burn a CD with a special song just for the prank. The CD had a version of his cover of The Cure’s “In Between Days” that had some skips and restarts programmed into it. If our ruse worked, the audience would be fooled into thinking the band was lip-synching, only to discover we were imposters when the real band showed up.

The sound guys play the CD

Agent Folds loaned me his glasses, and we rehearsed the song a few times along with the CD.

After a certain amount of CD skipping, Agents Barrison and King would panic and run off stage, leaving me to be stopped by security. Once security had me, the real Ben would come out, reclaim his glasses, and punch me in the gut.

Rehearsing the punch with Agent Folds and his manager Agent Wilkinson

Agent Jamieson taught Agent King how to make his drumming look believable. He set up a special cymbal that was taped down, allowing Agent King to bang on it without it making noise. Agent Reynolds set Agent Barrison up with his bass and gave him some pointers as well.

Here’s a video of one of our rehearsals:

After the rehearsal, we were able to hang out and watch the band soundcheck a few songs.

We left for dinner, and came back a couple of hours later to watch Corn Mo. We then met the band backstage, and ran through things one last time with the real security guards who would be holding me down.

Moments before go time

The three of us were incredibly excited. On the other side of the curtain, there were 3,300 people screaming like crazy to hear Ben Folds. Would we be able to pull it off? Would the crowd believe us? Would they boo us when we were caught lip-synching? Laugh? Riot?

Sold-out crowd

We were able to film the prank with only one camera from the sound board area (Hammerstein house rules.) Here is what Agent Goldman caught on tape:

The reaction from the crowd was amazing. When we first walked on stage it was unreal how loud they were cheering. A second pop from the crowd came when we started “playing” In Between Days. The first couple of rows, particularly the super-fans who had waited in line for hours to get right in front of Ben’s piano, figured things out pretty quickly. A few in the very front started chanting, “Where is Ben? Where is Ben?”

Trying to fix the skip

When the CD skips happened, they stopped chanting and started cracking up. Those further away seemed to be largely fooled at first. Most of the crowd was clapping along with the song. When the skips started happening, it was tough to read the crowd. Some booed. There was lots of talking. Some cheering. Some laughing. One thing was certain, when the real Ben Folds appeared and socked me in the stomach, the place went apeshit.

Agent Folds starts the show

Agents Reynolds and Jamieson perform

I don’t think I really look like Ben too much, but with his glasses on I looked pretty good from a distance. Agents Barrison and King looked pretty damn close to their counterparts to anyone not up front. Compare the real guys in the photo above, to this:

A friend of Agent Goldman’s managed to get some actual crowd reaction using the movie mode of her still camera. Listen carefully and you can here a dude screaming, “You guys are fucked!” as he thinks the band has been caught faking it.

Night Two: Beacon Theatre

For the second show, we were going to try out Agent Folds’ aforementioned idea involving the 10Hz frequency, also know as the “Brown Note.” The band had been playing the frequency at every gig on the tour, informing the audience of the urban legend that it is so intense that it makes humans defecate in their pants. Someone from the band’s crew would throw diapers into the crowd as the sound played, but of course nothing ever happened. Tonight would be different.

Agent Folds explains the plan

We would scatter four agents in the audience have each of them freak out when the sound was played. Security would bring them to the stage to get medical attention, and I would arrive dressed as an EMT to clean them up with towels (pre-stained with chocolate syrup, of course.)

As Agents Mason and Lindquist made it to the stage, I appeared as an EMT with a mask, rubber gloves, and some (pre-stained) towels to clean them up.

The crowd caught on pretty quickly that something was up, but as the brown note continued to shake everyone’s eardrums it did create a nice chaotic atmosphere, where no one was sure who was in on it, and what exactly was going on.

The Beacon also had strict filming rules, so we were only able to capture this with one static camera. The lighting was a bit dark too, but you’ll get a feel for what went down.

All in all it was an amazing two nights working with the band. The entire Ben Folds crew was completely awesome to us, and it was so cool to come full circle on five years of Improv Everywhere, winding right back up where we started, with the great Ben Folds.

Mission Accomplished.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

You can see more photos (in larger resolution) of this mission at Flickr.

Comments

64 Responses to Ben Folds Fake

Every comedian secretly wants to be a rock star. This comedian secretly wants to be rock drummer (even though I don’t really play the drums that well), but this prank got me closer than I ever thought I would be. I’ve also been a fan of Ben Folds since BFF first played the Cat’s Cradle back in college in Chapel Hill. I have every recording of every one of his songs I’ve been able to get, even the pre-BFF stuff, and I’ve seen him live more times than I can count. So…I was more than psyched.

We did a sound check in the afternoon, met Ben and his band, and Lindsay his drummer showed me exactly what to play and how to play it. He also set-up a dead cymbal for me to hit so I could really hit the drums as loud as I wanted. They were all ridiculously cool. So that night when the announcer said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Ben Folds," we took the stage and the 3,300 people in the audience went crazy. The audience had no idea we weren’t Ben and his band. I took my place behind the drum set, pretended to count-off on my drum sticks, and then banged away on them when the secret CD started – and the audience went nuts again. They still had no idea. When the CD finally skipped, the audience was totally confused. Some people cheered, some laughed, a few booed. It was a really weird energy in the room – total confusion. The people closest to Charlie were yelling "Where is Ben!?" Then Flynn and I ran off the stage. When Ben finally took the stage and punched Charlie in the gut – the audience went nuts again. It was amazing.

That’s amazing! I was in the back at the show and could barely see what was going on, and was completely tricked at first. I just thought Ben had hired a double for the opening. That fact that it was Agent Todd makes it even funnier!

About Us

Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents.